Women for Liberty delivers sneak attack on Sherrod Brown

Over the past few days, packets of anti-Democrat
political literature tucked into plastic sandwich bags were tossed
into East Side driveways. Don’t assume it’s litter. Nope, it’s
apparently a broadside from some bag ladies with an Indian Hill address
who call themselves a “grassroots, conservative group.” They are new on
the scene and bent on kicking President Barack Obama out of office, along with
anybody who might possibly share his views. But they might be cheating, or
tools of someone who is flouting the law.

There are 16 political pieces in the plastic bags, including an ad for the anti-Obama movie You Don’t Know Him.
All but one are properly labeled with disclaimers that show who paid
for each piece. For example, the Mitt Romney flier says it was paid for
by the Romney campaign. The Sean Donovan for Sheriff of Hamilton County
was paid for by Donovan for Sheriff. But a piece that attacks U.S. Sen.
Sherrod Brown is a mystery — nothing identifies its source. You cannot
discover who is behind it. The flier lists 10 reasons why Ohio
voters should replace Democrat Brown with Republican candidate Josh Mandel. The
piece concludes by saying, “This November 6, Vote for New Leadership for
Ohio. Vote Josh Mandel for Senator.”

The secret source of the handbill has the earmarks of
a dirty trick. Laws and rules governing electioneering make it clear printed material seeking to influence voters must disclose where it
came from. The mandatory disclaimer is what a person endlessly hears on TV
commercials — “I’m so and so and I paid for this ad.” Print material has
the same requirement — “Paid for by Save the Seahorses” or whoever is
responsible.

So whoever gave the conservative ladies the
anti-Brown handbill for their plastic bags seems to have broken the law.
Perhaps it was the coal mining industry, perhaps it was the Chinese
government, perhaps it was Ayn Rand back from the dead. Without a
disclaimer there is just no way to know who paid for the anti-Brown
attack. You are left to guess. All we know is that the writer didn’t
have the guts to stand behind the attack. They preferred shadowy and
sneaky over open and upright.

The Federal Election Commission publishes the rules campaigns must follow. It says, “On printed materials, the disclaimer notice must
appear within a printed box set apart from the other contents in the
communication. The print must be of a sufficient type-size to be
clearly readable by the recipient of the communication, and the print
must have a reasonable degree of color contrast between the background
and the printed statement.”

Ohio Rep. Connie Pillich of Cincinnati criticized the
University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees for former UC President Greg
Williams’ severance package. She told The Enquirer, “It’s
really disappointing that the trustees would make such a decision while
so many students and families are struggling with rising tuition costs.
As the trustees vote to needlessly spend over a million dollars, the
University is trying to decide how to fund $10 million for the
Cintrifuse project and students are taking out more loans to pay a
tuition that was increased by 3.5 percent this year.” Williams got a
package totaling $1.3 million after abruptly leaving the university,
citing personal reasons. Despite the allegedly rocky past between the
Board and Williams, the Board of Trustees insists it did not force him
out.

Eligible residents could save $163 a year with natural gas thanks to a new aggregation program in Cincinnati.
The city announced Friday it's working on the new plan with Duke
Energy, and customers should get details about the deal soon. The city
says the deal will reach about 64,000 residents and small businesses.

In case you missed it, the streetcar has been delayed to 2015. The city is now looking
for consultants to help manage the project with CAF USA, the city’s
preferred car manufacturer. The first phase of the streetcar will span
the Banks and Findlay Market. The city is also trying to study a
connection to the University of Cincinnati, Uptown’s hospitals and the
Cincinnati Zoo.

There is a lot of criticism being hurled at public charter
schools. While some charter schools are successful, some have serious
financial and educational problems. Critics say the schools need tougher
standards.

Romney is facing criticism for saying middle income is
$200,000 to $250,000 and less. However, Obama made a similar distinction
in the past when he said income up to $250,000 is middle class. The
reason for this strange distinction from both sides — most Americans
would find $250,000 to be beyond middle class — is to protect small
businesses. Typically, politicians try to bundle up small businesses
with middle class protections, and taxing income between $200,000 and
$250,000 as if it’s not middle class could potentially hurt small
businesses.

Fact-checkers at The Columbus Dispatch said a new TV ad by
Ohio treasurer and Republican U.S. Senatorial candidate Josh Mandel
“might be the most audaciously over-the-top ad to run so far in the
expensive and bitter race for the U.S. Senate.” The ad accuses
Democratic Senate incumbent Sherrod Brown of missing more than 350
official votes and voting to raise his own pay six times. The Dispatch
points out that Brown has a 97 percent voting record during his entire
time in Congress, which started in 1993 when he was elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives, according to GovTrack. According to the
Dispatch, “Mandel … borrows a tactic from GOP campaign
guru Karl Rove’s playbook: Identify your own weakness and find a way to
assign it to your opponent to confuse voters.”

The Ohio Ballot Board on Thursday approved new summary
language for Issue 2, which would take the decennial redistricting out
of the hands of politicians and task a nonpartisan commission with
redrawing congressional lines. The Dispatch reports that the new summary
removes factual inaccuracies and included previously omitted
information about who would select members of the new citizens
commission. Secretary of State and Ballot Board Chairman Jon Husted said
the board tried to make the language as generic and concise as
possible, but Democrats and voter advocates say the new language is too
long and technical and would confuse voters.

Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld became the
first elected official in the nation to host an online town hall. The
Enquirer reports that Sittenfeld is taking questions on the online tool
CrowdHall and by next Friday will have answered them via text or video.
He is also asking Cincinnatians to post suggestions as to how they would
balance the budget or spend the new casino revenue.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney defines
“middle income” as $200,000 to $250,000 a year. The Associated Press
reports that Romney made the comments during an interview broadcast
Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The Census Bureau meanwhile
reported this week that the median household income is just over
$50,000. CityBeat’s reporting staff wishes management would promote us
to middle income level.

Speaking of ABC, they’re being sued by Beef Products Inc.
for $1.2 billion over a report of the beef filler “pink slime.” The beef
company says the defaming report disparaged the safety of pink slime.

Obama again apologized for America called Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi and called on him and the Muslim Brotherhood to
stand with Washington against protesters who are attacking the U.S.
Embassy in what The New York Times called a “blunt phone call.”

Vows to bring to justice killers of U.S. Ambassador to Libya

DAYTON – Vice President Joe Biden took time at the beginning of his
Wednesday campaign stop in Dayton to condemn an overnight attack that killed the
U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, while praising the work and
courage of American diplomats and promising to bring to justice those who
carried out the attack.

“(This) brave — and it’s not hyperbole to say brave –— ambassador
was in Benghazi while the war was going on. Our ambassador risked his life
repeatedly while the war in Libya to get rid of that dictator was going on,”
Biden said.

“These men are as brave and as courageous as any of our warriors.”

The Tuesday attack took place during a protest against an amateur
short film made in the United States that protesters say insulted the Prophet
Muhammad. U.S Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three of his staff members
were killed.

“Let me be clear — we are resolved to bring to justice their
killers,” Biden said.

The vice president made no mention of Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney’s criticism of the Obama administration’s response from
the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, which he characterized as “akin to an apology” and a
“severe miscalculation,” but the vice president quickly segued into politics, alluding
to Romney’s relative lack of experience in foreign policy.

“The task of a president is not only to defend our interests and
causes and the cause of freedom abroad, it is also to build a nation here at
home, to which the entire world can look and aspire to be like,” Biden said. “Whether
we do that and how we do that, that is literally the essence of the choice we
face in this presidential election. It really is that basic, and foreign policy
is not some sideline to all of this.”

The Romney campaign in Ohio was quick to respond, calling Biden’s
remarks “hypocritical” in an emailed statement.

“Vice President Biden’s appearance in Dayton only served further
damage to his credibility as he reprised hypocritical and widely debunked
attacks against Mitt Romney. Not only did the Vice President mislead Ohioans,
but he attacked Mitt Romney for supporting the same tax policy the Obama
Administration supported just last year,” Romney Ohio spokesman Christopher
Maloney wrote.

“With today’s Census report showing nearly 1 in 6 Americans
living in poverty and incomes continuing to decline, it appears that misleading
attacks are all the Obama campaign has left to offer 400,000 Ohioans looking
for work.”

Maloney’s email also fact-checked a claim made by Biden during
his speech. Biden said that he opposed the so-called “territorial tax,” which
he said would allow American companies that invested abroad to avoid paying
taxes in the United States.

The email included links to an Associated Press fact checking
article that concludes that Romney’s proposal was aimed at encouraging
investment in the U.S. rather than overseas.

Biden spoke to a packed house at Wright State University in
Dayton, with overflow crowds estimated in the hundreds viewing in separate
rooms in the Student Union.

The vice president reiterated many of his usual stump speech
points — the Romney tax plan’s negative effects on the middle class, the
benefits of the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration’s commitment to
manufacturing — but much of Biden’s speech focused on education. He said a president
Romney would cut funding for Pell Grants, meaning many students in the audience
would have to leave school. He also lauded President Barack Obama’s
administration’s enactment of a tax break of $2,500 for every family that sends
a child to college.

The usually bombastic Biden wasn’t without his gaffes. Twice he
referred to Wright State as “Wayne State,” which is in Detroit, despite a large
Wright State University banner displayed in the conference room where he gave
his speech.

The crowd was quick to correct him after the second time he misspoke.

“Wright State, which also includes Wayne State,” Biden said after
he was corrected, eliciting laughs from the audience.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Saturday laid out
five steps that he said would have America “roaring back” during his first campaign stop since formally accepting the
Republican nomination.

At Cincinnati's Union Terminal, Romney was joined on stage by his wife Anne, who spoke briefly, echoing her convention speech meant to humanize her husband.

He said his plan involved encouraging development in oil
and coal, implementing a trade policy that favored American companies
and not “cheaters” like China, making sure workers and students had
skills to succeed in the coming century, reducing the deficit and
encouraging small business growth.

About an hour after the Romney campaign event, Cincinnati
Democratic leaders held a news conference to rebut the Republican’s
speech.

“Much of his (Romney’s) speech was like his speech in
Tampa, which is where Romney gave Cincinnatians nothing more than vague
platitudes, false and misleading attacks without one single tangible
idea on how to move forward,” said Democratic/Charterite Cincinnati City
Councilwoman Yvette Simpson.

Simpson, along with Democratic Councilman Cecil Thomas and
Bishop Bobby Hilton, attacked the tax plan put forward by Romney and
his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. They said it would cut taxes
for the richest Americans while raising taxes on the middle class by
about $2,000 per household, citing an analysis from the nonpartisan Tax
Policy Center.

“Mitt Romney’s plan would take Ohio and Cincinnati backwards, and we don’t have time to go backwards,” Hilton said.

Hilton credited Cincinnati’s revitalization and urban development in part on federal money obtained from Obama’s stimulus plan.

“We deserve better than this. We deserve better than Romney/Ryan,” he said.

Romney would have disagreed with Hilton’s assessment of
Cincinnati’s growth. During his speech he praised Ohio Gov. John Kasich,
crediting him with bringing jobs and businesses to the state.

Romney also took time to attack President Barack Obama’s
record in office. The GOP nominee said in preparation for his convention
speech he read many past convention speeches — including Obama’s.

“He was not one of the ones that I wanted to draw from,
except I could not resist a couple of things he said, because he made a
lot of promises,” Romney said. “And I noted that he didn't keep a lot of
promises.”

Romney also criticized what he called the bitterness and
divisiveness of Obama’s campaign, saying as president he would bring the
country together. He mentioned the “patriotism and courage” of the late
Neil Armstrong, who was honored in a private service in Cincinnati on
Friday.

“I will do everything in my power to bring us together,
because, united, America built the strongest economy in the history of
the earth. United, we put Neil Armstrong on the moon. United, we faced
down unspeakable darkness,” Romney said.

“United, our men and women in uniform continue to defend
freedom today. I love those people who serve our great nation. This is a
time for us to come together as a nation.”

The candidate’s remarks ignited the crowd of thousands,
many of whom wore shirts with slogans like “Mr. President, I did build
my business,” in response to a remark made by Obama about businesses being helped to grow by government contracts and
infrastructure, and “Mitt 2012: At least he never ate dog meat,” referring to a passage in Obama’s 2008 memoir during which he recalls being
fed dog meat as a boy in Indonesia.

Steve Heckman, a 62-year-old environmental consultant from
Springfield, Ohio, said he voted for Obama in 2008 but will likely
vote for Romney in this election.

He said he’d written “some pretty ugly stuff” about Romney
in the past but felt jobs was the No. 1 issue and thought the Obama
administration’s policies were sending them out of the country.

“The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has, to me, become a little too almost like a fringe group, putting so much pressure
on businesses that they are moving to Canada,” Heckman said. “Things
like air permits, the EPA is taking too long to issue them. It’s not
just power plants they’re affecting, but all manufacturing.”

Heckman said he didn’t blame the president personally but thinks whoever he put in charge of the agency is being too strict.

“I grew up when the EPA was first put in place in the '70s, and they were, in my opinion, doing God’s work,” he said, citing
the cleaning up of rivers such as the Cuyahoga near Cleveland, which
famously caught fire because of pollution in 1969.

“I support the EPA, but it’s driving businesses out of here.”

Speaking ahead of Romney were U.S. House Speaker John
Boehner, Sen. Rob Portman, U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, Ohio treasurer and
GOP senatorial candidate Josh Mandel and Republican U.S. House candidate
for Ohio’s 2nd District, Brad Wenstrup.

“This election is all about changing Washington,” Mandel
said. “The only way to change Washington is to change the people we send
there.”

Judge approves in-person early voting for weekend and Monday before Election Day

In a statement on Aug. 22, Secretary of State Jon Husted
said of early voting, “The rules are set and are not going to change.”
Husted made the comment in an attempt to end discussion over in-person
early voting hours.

Unfortunately for Husted, a federal judge disagrees. In a
ruling today, Judge Peter Economus said in-person early voting must be
restored for all registered voters to include the Saturday, Sunday and
Monday before Election Day. Husted will now work with county boards of
elections around the state to decide the voting hours for those days.

The ruling is the outcome of President Barack Obama’s
campaign and the Ohio Democratic Party suing Husted to extend in-person
early voting. Before the ruling, only military personnel and their
families were allowed to vote, which the Obama team and Democrats argued
was unfair to non-military voters. With the ruling, everyone —
including military personnel and their families — will be able to vote during the three days before election day.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has vowed to appeal the ruling, but, for now, the news comes as a victory to Obama and Democrats in the ongoing struggle over early voting hours.

Recently, Republicans have tried to block any statewide expansion of
in-person early voting, citing costs and racial politics. Doug Preisse,
chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party and close adviser to
Gov. John Kasich, previously wrote to The Columbus Dispatch in an email,
“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process
to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout
machine.”

Republicans defended Preisse’s racially insensitive comment by calling it
“background” and saying it was supposed to be off the record. But those
defenses didn’t match Preisse’s defense of his own comment, and they didn’t
deny the substance of the comment. CityBeat covered the racial politics behind early voting in this week’s issue (“Republicans Admit Racial Politics,” issue of Aug. 29).

Mike Wilson, the Republican candidate for state
representative in Ohio’s 28th district, also voiced some concerns about
the lawsuit. He said extending in-person early
voting for everyone could make lines too long for military personnel and
their families.

Romney campaign, Murray Energy dispute who made call to close mine for event

Earlier this month presumed Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney appeared at a coal mine in Beallsville, Ohio to denounce
President Barack Obama’s “war on coal” against a powerful backdrop: hundreds of
coal miners dusted with the black powder that their work entails.

But what wasn’t made apparent at the time is that those
workers were pulled from the mines prematurely and not paid for the time they
didn’t work.

According to emails and phone calls received by WWVA-AM West
Virginia talk show host David Blomquist, miners said they were told that
attendance at the Romney event would be mandatory and unpaid.

As first reported by The Plain Dealer in Cleveland on
Tuesday, mine owner Murray Energy Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore told
Blomquist that managers “communicated to our workforce that the attendance at
the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend.” He said that
people who did now show up to the event, which organizers say drew 1,500 miners
and family members, were not penalized for their absence.

Blomquist said during the radio show that current and former
employees had called and emailed him saying they feel they were forced to go,
had to take off a day without pay and a roll call was taken, which caused some
employees to believe they would lose their jobs if they didn’t show up.

“Just for the record, if we did not go, we knew what would
happen,” Blomquist read from an email he had received. “It is wrong what we
were made to do because of the outcome if we don’t.”

The Columbus Dispatch reported that Murray Energy Corp.
founder Robert Murray attended the Tuesday breakfast hosted by the Ohio delegation to the Republican National Convention. Murray told the newspaper that the decision to
close the mine was made at the request of the Secret Service.

Murray disputed the report that miners weren’t paid for the
day, saying they were compensated for the hours they spend underground, from 6
a.m. to 11 a.m. The mine was re-opened for a second shift at 4 p.m.

“They were all there voluntarily,” Murray said of the miners
who attended the Romney event, which was also attended by Republican U.S.
Senator Rob Portman and Ohio Treasurer and Senate candidate Josh Mandel.

“You don’t pay people to go voluntarily to a political
event. If I would’ve paid them you would be saying you want it the other way.
This is all a bunch of nonsense,” Murray told The Dispatch. Federal law prohibits the paying of private employees to attend a political event.

Murray blames layoffs at some of his mines on Obama’s
policies. His companies have had a history of environmental and safety violations,
and its Political Action Committee has held fundraisers for and donated to
Republican causes.

Romney’s Ohio campaign spokesman disputed that the Secret
Service had the mine shut down, telling The Dispatch in an email that “It was
Murray Energy’s decision to close the Century Mine, not the campaign’s or the
Secret Services.” His comment echoes what Murray CFO Moore said on the radio
show, that management wanted to attend the event and they couldn’t have miners
underground without management present.

For his part, radio host Blomquist took issue with the fact that
the miners lost out on a full eight hours of pay because of a political event.

“My whole point is that nobody should be pressured into
attending anyone’s political event,” he told The Plain Dealer. “If they shut
the mine down, why should they lose a day’s pay? There are some guys that just
want to go to work, feed their family and go home.”

Carbon dioxide emissions fell to a 20-year low this year,
largely thanks to natural gas that was made cheaper and more plentiful
due to the fracking boom in Ohio and other states. The news is a
surprising turnaround for climate change activists, but critics
worry that methane — a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide — emitted from natural gas operations could still pose a significant climate
threat. Environmental groups are generally opposed to fracking,
but supporters, like Gov. John Kasich, insist it can be made safe with
enough regulations. CityBeat previously covered the concerns and questions behind fracking here.

The Ohio Department of Education has had a rough year, and
in a few ways, it’s back to square one. On top of the search for a new
superintendent of public instruction, the Department of Education has
had to deal with budget cuts and layoffs, a new Board of Education
member with no college degree or known resume, and the department is now
being investigated by the state auditor.

The White House has announced a $30 million manufacturing
hub for Ohio that will act as a model for the rest of the United States.
The hub will bring together universities and businesses in order to increase growth and collaboration and decrease risk.

Ohio has seen an uptick of businesses requesting to work
in the state, according to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. Estimates
show 6,137 new entities applied to work in the state during July, up
from 5,472 during July 2011. The state has also seen 52,728
new business requests so far in 2012, up from 49,460 during the same
January-to-July period in 2011. The news shows some signs of
strengthening economic growth in Ohio.

But Ohio’s unemployment rate barely moved in July. The
unemployment rate remained at 7.2 percent, the same as June’s
unemployment rate, even though 2,000 jobs were added.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. EPA,
Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and energy companies met yesterday
to work out how Ohio will enforce new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
The new standards will greatly reduce toxic pollutants given off by
power plants, according to the National Resources Defense Council.

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor claims there’s a funding
shortage for courts. The shortage could make it difficult for some cases
and people to see their day in the courtroom.

Fifty-eight state Republican lawmakers have never broken from the very conservative Ohio Chamber of Commerce in a vote.

Sen. Rob Portman will be speaking at the Republican
national convention. The convention will make Mitt Romney’s nomination
as the Republican presidential candidate official. Conventions are also a
time for political parties to show off their new party platforms.

President Barack Obama is coming back to Ohio next Tuesday. The president will be staying in Columbus this time around.

The Ohio Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit against Gov.
John Kasich — who they claim is improperly using his office to campaign
for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney — to get the
governor to release his schedule of public events.

The ODP’s lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Franklin County
Court of Common Pleas, contends that Kasich’s office either ignored or
only partially fulfilled the request.

“It’s unfortunate that this Governor is so opposed to
transparency and public disclosure that we have to ask the Court to
force him to follow the law,” ODP Chairman Chris Redfern said in a
statement.

“Serious questions remain regarding whether the Governor
has improperly used his office for the benefit of Mitt Romney, and it’s
deeply disappointing Kasich is so secretive he won’t even tell the
public what he’s done or where he’s gone.”

“We release public records in accordance with the law, and
in fact have already publicly released the governor’s schedule six
times, including a schedule request to the ODP,” Nichols said.

“This is predictable election year politics from the same
people who were just rebuked for using public records demands to
interfere with the Auditor of State’s investigation into possible data
manipulation in some school districts.”

Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Jerid Kurtz said Kasich’s
office did respond to one of the seven requests for the schedule, but
some of the information in the records was redacted — including an
entire week that was blacked out with no explanation.

“Ohio law is very clear, and it states you have to give a specific excuse when you redact something,” Kurtz said.

According to the lawsuit and court documents, the ODP
requested on July 2 Kasich’s public schedule from that date through Aug.
27.

According to a letter to the Ohio Democratic Party from
Mehek M. Cook — assistant chief counsel to Kasich — the information
about the governor's future plans was blacked out because that information
could put him at risk.

“The governor and his office receive threats on any given
day and the release of his whereabouts increases security issues
surrounding the governor’s safety,” Cook wrote.

Cook wrote that any information in the records used by the
Executive Protection Unit assigned to guard Kasich constitutes a
security record and was redacted.

He also wrote that some information that would reveal
confidential business meetings and trade secrets that would harm Ohio
efforts to court businesses was blacked out. Additionally, information
not relevant to the request was redacted.

Kurtz said it’s important that the public have access
those schedules because voters have a right to know what their governor
is doing on the public dime.

The schedules include where the governor is and with whom
he meets, but they also show scheduled phone calls and media interviews.

The Ohio Democratic Party worries that Kasich is
improperly campaigning for Romney while receiving a taxpayer-funded
paycheck, or using public money to have his staff do so.

The concerns stem from statements made by Kasich both in
public and on his Twitter account either praising the presumed
Republican presidential nominee or slamming President Obama.

For instance, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reported that when Obama visited Ohio on Aug. 1 the governor tweeted “On
the occasion of the President's latest visit to Ohio, we have a
question for him,” with a link to a graphic asking “If the President's
policies are behind Ohio's success, why is the rest of the country
trailing us?”

Democrats claim that Ohio’s success relative to the rest
of the country are due to efforts by President Obama, while Republicans
say Governor Kasich is behind Ohio’s faster-than-average recovery.

While the Ohio Democratic Party is suing to have Kasich
release his public schedule (Kurtz says Attorney General Mike DeWine and
Auditor Dave Yost complied with similar requests in a timely manner)
the state Republican Party has also submitted similar requests to
Democrats throughout Ohio.

Kurtz characterized the GOP requests as being sent by
Kasich’s “hand-picked lieutenants in the Ohio Republican Party,” though
Nichols told The Plain Dealer that the governor had no involvement.

Presumed GOP VP nominee to visit alma mater Miami Wednesday

The guest speaker at the office opening will be Butler
County Democratic Party Chairwoman Jocelyn Bucaro who, according to a
news release, will contrast the competing visions of President Barack
Obama and his presumptive Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

“The Romney-Ryan budget would devastate the security of
senior citizens — ending Medicare as we know it by turning the program
into a voucher system and privatizing Social Security,” the release
read.

Along with a Milford office which is also opening Tuesday, the Oxford office with contribute to the total of nine campaign offices in the region. The Obama campaign has offices in East Walnut Hills, College Hill, Forest Park, Cheviot, Middletown, Springboro and Mason.

Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Ryan will speak Wednesday evening at Miami
University’s Engineering Quad, according to the Miami College
Republicans’ Facebook page.

Ryan graduated from Miami in 1992 and was asked back as the commencement speaker in 2009.

Media musings from Cincinnati and beyond

• I was at UPI in London during the 1963 March on
Washington. I read about it in London dailies and the Paris
Herald-Tribune. Since then, all kinds of “marches” on Washington have
cheapened the brand. So has the obsessive replaying of snippets from
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as if it were the event. I’m grateful to
news media that went further in recalling the magnitude of the 1963
march and roles played by organizers and other speakers. This was part
of the 1960s that I missed.

• Court rulings allow the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
heir to own and control his “I Have a Dream” speech to the 1963 march.
Anyone wanting to use more than a few words must pay. My first reaction
was “WTF? It was a public event in a public place and a public speech to
the public. That can be ‘owned’? Yup.

• Stenographic reporting of the so-called debate over
whether to bomb Syria back into the Stone Age helps build acceptance for
a new war. Similarly, assertions that Assad’s forces gassed civilians
are repeatedly reported as evidence or proof.

As of this writing, reporters have quoted no top Obama
administration official willing to offer evidence or proof. Instead, as
evidence, we have unverified videos online and interpretations of what
the images show. Reporters don’t tell us who provided death figures or
who provided information that White House is using the claim Sarin gas
was used.

• Meanwhile, the constitutional expectation that only
Congress can declare war has suffered the same fate as the Fourth
Amendment ban on unreasonable seizures and searches; dying if not dead.

Germany and Japan attacked us. Congress responded for the
most recent time: 1942. Russia’s surrogate attacked our dictator across
the 38th Parallel in 1950 and triggered the still-unresolved Korean
police action. LBJ was conned or knowingly lied about reported 1964
attacks on American warships in the Tonkin Gulf and moved us into the
undeclared Vietnam War. Luckily, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait in1990
and started Gulf War I. The CIA’s totally mistaken 2002 “slam dunk”
assurance about Weapons of Mass Destruction was used by Bush to justify
undeclared Gulf War II. After 9/11, Afghans sheltered Osama bin Laden
before our allies in Pakistan sheltered him and that was used to justify
our unfinished and undeclared war against the Taliban in both countries
although the Taliban never attacked us. Let’s not even get into the
invasion of Panama or Grenada or fiasco in Somalia. All that’s missing
in this latest rush to bash a hornets nest is a repeat of the New York
Times sycophantic reporting that Saddam Hussein had and would use
weapons of mass destruction.

• If you want a weapon of mass destruction, how about the
AK-47, the totemic Soviet assault rifle that is ubiquitous on every
continent or the simple machete/panga with which millions have been and
are being murdered and/or mutilated. No chemical, biological or nuclear
weapon has killed so many people.

• When will some national reporter ask, “What’s surgical
about a surgical strike?” Nothing unless we’re comparing it to carpet
bombing a la Germany, Japan, Laos or Vietnam.

Other than assassinating Assad with a drone-launched
guided missile — good enough for Americans in Yemen — any attack on
Syria will create “collateral” damage. They used to be called innocent
victims, sort of like French civilians killed by Allies’ D-Day bombing.

However, it’s no mystery why news media are willing, even
eager to echo this desensitizing insider language. It recalls “RPG,”
“IED,” “smart bombs,” “boots on the ground” and similar military
language embraced by civilian reporters for their civilian audiences.
Except those buzz words weren’t for civilian audiences; it was how
reporters assured military sources that journalists were savvy and
sympathetic listeners.

“Surgical strikes” serves us as badly as reporting
unsupported assertions and assumptions as fact. Accurately reported
bullshit is still bullshit.

• Accurate reporting requires context. Why is gassing
hundreds of Syrian civilians in Damascus worse than shooting and killing
as many or more civilians about in and around Cairo? Why is the killing
and wounding of thousands in Cairo worse than endlessly raping,
wounding, mutilating and killing millions of civilians in the horribly
misnamed Democratic Republic of Congo?

• Our selective condemnation of poison gas recalls the
11th-century papal ban of the cross bow; peasant crossbowmen could kill
armored knights from an unmanly and impersonal distance. That also was
bad for the social order. Welsh bowmen faced no such opprobrium although
their arrows killed far more mounted knights.

Jump ahead almost a millennium. There is debate on what is
a chemical weapon and not all gasses — think tear gas — are poisonous.
Poison gas was used infrequently but without sanction during the past
100 years.

Germans and the British gassed each other during World War
I. Communists were accused of using poison gas during Russian Civil
War. Italians gassed native troops in Ethiopia in the 1930s in years
when colonial powers were suspected/accused of gassing rebellious native
troops. Japanese gassed Chinese during early World War II. Egyptians
gassed Yemeni forces in the 1960s but Americans denied using
toxic/blister gasses in Vietnam and Laos. Iraq deployed lethal gas
against its own people and Iranian forces in the insane Iraq-Iran 1980s
war. Politicians and UN officials fulminate against gassing civilians
but they only remind us how selective agony and journalism can be.

• No less authority than President Obama relegated the
comparative to the dustbin of grammar. His speech at the Lincoln
Memorial last week praised King and other civil rights activists, saying
“Because they marched, America became more free and more fair.” True,
but I’ll bet King would have said, “freer and fairer.”

• Everyone’s lauding David Frost’s evocative interviews
with disgraced Richard Nixon after he resigned the presidency. He died
after a heart attack on Saturday.

My memory of Frost is different: TW3, the original That
Was the Week that Was on BBC TV. It was as irreverent as posh Brits from
Oxbridge could be and Frost was a central figure in its creation in
1962 and weekly broadcasts until it was cancelled to avoid criticism as
the 1964 general election neared. Two skits stand out in my memory, in
part because my Saturday night duties at UPI included watching and
filing a story on anything newsworthy that TW3 did/said.

The first showed an otherwise empty set with seemingly
naked Millicent Martin, then young and drop-dead lovely, astride and
leaning over the back of a curvy, modern Arne Jacobsen chair. It was the
same pose call girl Christine Keeler used when photographed during the
scandal over her affair with government minister John Profumo. You can
see the original Keeler image at www.vam.ac.uk. Martin
resembled Keeler just as Tina Fey looked like Sarah Palin. Martin
looked straight at the camera and said something like, “John told me I
was sitting on a fortune.” That was it. Perfect lampoon but there was no
way to use that skit on UPI’s wire.

The second memorable skit followed the apparent TW3 and
BBC late night sign-off. A De Gaulle look alike, right down the uniform
and kepi on his head, addressed the Brits contemptuously over some
strategic or diplomatic blunder. Then the broadcast ended. That skit
was newsworthy. BBC said its switchboard operators — remember, this was
the early 1960s — were overwhelmed. Seemed the perfect jab at the
Establishment by its children fooled a lot of Brits; they thought BBC
really had broadcast a De Gaulle speech.

• On a celebratory note, authorities dropped charges
against Tim Funk, religion reporter for the Charlotte Observer, who
arrested while he interviewed “Moral Monday” demonstrators at the
Statehouse in Raleigh, NC. He was charged with second-degree trespass
and failure to disperse.

Tim’s a Northern Kentuckian and among the ablest of
decades of my undergraduate students. After the local prosecutor came to
his senses, Tim told the AP, “It was clear to everyone there that I was
a news reporter just doing my job interviewing Charlotte-area clergy
about how they felt about being arrested. The reporter’s job is to be
the eyes and ears of the public who can’t be present at important public
events like this protest. That’s all I was doing.”

When his June 10 arrest was reported, at least one
respondent noted that Tim was among the first detained, stopping him
from seeing how police handled demonstrators.

His editor, Rick Thames, told AP, “This is clearly the
right result, and we congratulate the district attorney for making the
right decision. Tim Funk was working as a journalist inside the most
obvious public building in our state. The videotape of Tim’s arrest
demonstrates clearly that his only purpose in being there was to provide
our readers a vivid firsthand account. He was clearly not obstructing
the police. It’s hard to understand why he was arrested in the first
place.”

• Cincinnati taxpayers need to know more about competing —
and inescapably costly — plans to overcome years of city council
shortchanging the city pension fund. The news isn’t good. As the
Enquirer’s James Pilcher put it Sunday, “if every man,woman and child
living in the city of Cincinnati contributed $2,000 apiece, it still
wouldn’t be enough to fill the plan’s current $870 million gap.”

There’s a timeline with his explanatory story that screams
for elaboration: What, if any, roles did mayoral candidates Roxanne
Qualls and John Cranley play in council decisions to deepen the pension
debt?

And I howled at the quote from state auditor Dave Yost: “ .
. . the city is in a fork in the road . . . And I’m concerned
Cincinnati is not doing enough to avoid going down that fork in the
road.”

Don’t try this at home. Sort of like standing with a foot
on each side of a barbed wire fence. Reminds me of a friend who’d look
right, point left and say, “Go this way.”

Maybe with Yost’s sense of direction, Cincinnati should consider the road not taken.

Ohioans for Responsible Solutions launches chapters in Columbus and Cleveland

The gun violence prevention group founded by former
Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on July 27 announced the launch of
Ohioans for Responsible Solutions, which will continue the
organization’s efforts to support officials who back responsible gun
legislation.

The new chapters, in Cleveland and Columbus, are part of
Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), which Giffords and her
husband, retired Navy Captain and astronaut Mark Kelly, launched in January.

“People in the Buckeye State know the terrible toll gun
violence takes on communities,” ARS Executive Director Pia Carusone said
in a statement. “We’re excited about what the 18,000-plus Ohioans for
Responsible Solutions will accomplish because they represent a rich
cross-section of the community: gun owners and non-gun owners alike, law
enforcement officials, victims of gun violence, faith leaders, moms
and voters of all political stripes from every part of the state.”

Giffords’ organization says it is not anti-gun — Giffords
and Kelly are both gun owners — instead arguing that the gun lobby’s
influence has kept legislators from passing common-sense legislation
that most Americans support.

A Gallup poll conducted April 22-25 found 65 percent of
Americans believed the U.S. Senate should have passed a measure to
expand background checks for gun purchases and ban some semi-automatic
weapons, which the Senate failed to pass April 17 because of procedural
steps requiring 60 votes to pass. The final vote was 54 in favor and 46
against. Twenty-nine percent
of Americans agreed with the Senate’s failure to pass the measure, and 6
percent had no opinion. The poll had a margin of error of +/-4
percentage points.

In January — just a month after the shooting massacre in
Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and six adults — Gallup found 91
percent of Americans support required background checks for all gun
sales. The poll asked respondents about each of nine key proposals
included in President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce gun violence. The
two least-supported proposals still had majority support, but these
issues turned out to be at the center of the legislation that failed to pass
the Senate four months later: reinstating a ban on assault weapons (60-percent support),
and limiting the sale of ammunition magazines to those with 10 rounds
or less (54-percent support).

Giffords has become one of the nation’s highest-profile
gun violence prevention activists since a shooting in 2011 that left her
partially paralyzed. Giffords survived the assassination attempt on Jan.
8, 2011 in Tucson, Ariz., when a mentally ill man shot her in the head
at a political event outside a grocery store. The man then fired on
other people, killing six and wounding 12 total.

Giffords and Kelly participated in the Northside Fourth
of July parade early this month as part of Americans for Responsible
Solutions’ “Rights and Responsibilities” cross-country tour promoting
the organization’s goal of advocating for candidates that support
responsible gun policies that protect both the public and the rights of
gun owners. CityBeat covered the event here.

“Stopping gun violence takes courage. The courage to do
right, the courage of new ideas,” Giffords told the Northside crowd
during a press event before the parade. “I’ve seen great courage when my
life was on the line. Now is the time to come together to be
responsible. Democrats, Republicans, everyone. We must do something.
Fight, fight, fight.”

Americans for Responsible Solutions announced this week
that its super PAC has raised $6.5 million so far this year and more
than 500,000 members. At this point it has not announced any plans for a Cincinnati
chapter.

Senator announces support for gay marriage two years after son comes out

Terrace Park isn’t the likeliest of neighborhoods for
Cincinnatians to mingle with diverse groups of people, so it wouldn’t be that
surprising if Sen. Rob Portman maybe didn’t have much experience interacting
with gay people before his son came out two years ago.

But boy what a difference a gay son and two years of
reflection make.

Portman had to prepare his own coming out speech yesterday,
this one to his GOP senatorial brothers and sisters, none of which support
same-sex marriage. Imagine how nervous he must have been, sleeves rolled up,
flag pin hanging slightly askew as he spoke to reporters in response to the
op-ed he published supporting gay marriage. If he stuttered at all it’s not
because he wasn’t earnest — he just really loves his son.

Two years ago Portman’s son, Will, was a freshman at Yale when he came home and explained that being gay “was not a choice,” which seems
to have resonated with Dad. Portman consulted with religious leaders and other men
who have been anti-gay even though they have close family members who are
homosexual, like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who probably said something
like, “Dude, it doesn’t matter anymore now that Obama is talking about queers
in the State of the Union and shit. Roll Tide.”

Portman explained his new found interest in respecting
millions of fellow humans this way: "[I
want] him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have
— to have a relationship like Jane and I have had for over 26 years.”

Portman says he would like to see congress overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, a
redundant and discriminatory piece of legislation banning federal recognition
of gay marriage, which he helped pass in 1996. But he still doesn’t think the
federal government should tread on the states and make them recognize it if
they don’t want to.

Meanwhile,
in Washington Harbor, Md., Republicans at the Conservative Political
Action Conference yesterday discussed their bigotry during a panel called
"A Rainbow on the Right: Growing the Coalition." The featured speaker
was Jimmy LaSalvia, whose Republican gay-rights organization GOProud wasn’t
allowed to sponsor the conference.

While gay-rights leaders celebrate the support and the
possibility of other powerful Republicans realizing that they know and care about
someone who is different, the announcement brings attention to other
conservatives trying to remove yuckiness from the party’s official stance on
homosexuality and gay marriage.

Jon Huntsman, a GOP presidential candidate in 2012 who had endorsed civil
unions, said this year that he supports marriage rights. Furthermore, he framed
it in conservative terms.

"There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the
ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love," he
wrote.

And Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general for President George W. Bush,
has been one of the lead attorneys challenging California's Proposition 8, a
ballot initiative barring same-sex marriage in that state. (Portman fretted in
his op-ed that a court decision might hamper the political movement toward
legalizing gay and lesbian weddings.)

And Fred Malek, a Republican power-broker, told NBC News this week that
conservatives shouldn't feel threatened by gays and lesbian couples who wish to
marry.

"I've always felt that marriage is between a man and a woman, but other
people don't agree with that," he said. "People should be able to
live their lives the way they choose. And it's not going to threaten our
overall value system or our country to allow gays to marry, if that's what they
want to do."

Nearly a quarter of Republicans reportedly support same-sex
rights, leaving the door open for plenty more GOP leaders to search for gay family
members on Facebook who might offer insight inspirational enough to frame their
own stories of new found compassion and respect for other people.

Media musings from Cincinnati and beyond

• Giovanna Chirri, the veteran Vaticanista who understood
the pope’s Latin, broke the news that he’d just announced his
resignation. She works for the Italian news agency, ANSA. Her skill
recalled Ernest Sackler at Rome’s UPI bureau when I was a
photojournalist stringer during John XXIII’s papacy. Ernest truly
understood Vatican Latin well enough to turn it into flowing English;
colleagues spoke of him with awe.

• I’m grateful to the Enquirer for running a story on Sen.
Rand Paul’s response to the State of the Union Message. It wasn’t on
NPR or any other network that I could find. His Washington office did
not respond to my question of whether the Kentucky Republican offered his
remarks to any broadcasters/cable networks.

• Tens of millions of Americans will become eligible for
subsidized medical care under Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Who’s going
to treat them? I haven’t seen that in the news. And while reporters are
working out that story, ask how the required additional primary care
physicians will pay off college and medical school debts on the salaries
that will be paid to their specialties.

• And once journalists dig into the supply of physicians
to handle Medicaid expansion, I hope they’ll ask who’s going to staff
quality preschool education for every American child. Obama can be
aspirational, but we’re not talking about minimum wage diaper changers.
Early learning centers require trained pre-school educators. And while
they’re at it, reporters should ask where these new early childhood
educators will train and who’s going pick up the tab. After all, they’ll
never repay college loans on day care wages.

• Maybe I missed it in the admiring coverage of our
government killing American Islamists abroad with drone rocket attacks: What prevents Obama from killing Americans in this country with drone
strikes? None of the news stories or commentaries I’ve read or heard
addressed that point.

There would be no shortage of targets. Wouldn’t the
sheriff have loved a drone-launched missile to kill Christopher Dorner,
the rogue ex-LAPD cop? That might have spared the deputy whom Dorner
killed during the flaming finale in the San Bernardino mountains. And
what prevents our increasingly militarized police from using their own
armed drones?

Imagine what authorities could have done with armed drones during earlier, infamous encounters:

A missile fired at armed members of the American Indian
Movement at Wounded Knee, S.D., could have avenged inept, vain
and foolish George Armstrong Custer and FBI agents killed in the 1973
siege.

No feds would have died if a drone-launched missile
incinerated Randy Weaver’s family with during its deadly 1992
confrontation with feds at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

David Koresh and the Branch Davidian religious sect were
incinerated by the feds’ 1993 armored assault in Texas. That would have
been a perfect photo op for a domestic drone attack.

• Sometimes, “national security” is the rationale for requested or commanded self-censorship, even when secrets aren’t secret.

For instance, British editors held stories about Prince
Harry until he returned the first time from Afghanistan. However, an
Australian women’s magazine reported he was in combat. The non-secret
was a secret because no one paid attention.

More recently, the new U.S. drone base in Saudi Arabia was
supposed to be a secret. Obama officials asked major news media to hold
the story and they agreed. National security, you know.

But it wasn’t a secret. Washington Post blogger Erik
Wemple said Fox News already had reported U.S. plans to build the
facility in Sept. 2011. Three months before that, the Times of
London reported construction of the Saudi drone base.

When the New York Times broke the agreement and reported
the Saudi drone base, everyone jumped on the story. Now, the Times, the
Post and AP are trying to explain why they kept the non-secret from us.

• Gone are the days when senior Israeli government
officials could call in top editors and broadcasters and tell them what
they could not report. Last week, a tsunami of technology overwhelmed
official Israeli efforts to censor the story of Prisoner X. Israeli
journalists were not to report his existence or mention the censorship
order. National security, you know. However, an Australian network named
an Aussie as Prisoner X and said he reportedly committed suicide three
years ago in an Israeli prison. Social media and the online world took
it from there: "Aussie recruited by Israeli spy agency dies in Israeli
prison." Israel dropped efforts to censor the Prisoner X story and is
issuing official statements about the case.

• San Bernardino’s sheriff asked journalists to quit
tweeting from the final gunfight with former LAPD cop Christopher
Dorner. Bizarre. If authorities feared Dorner would gain tactical
information, they misread his situation: Dorner was surrounded in a
mountain cabin, tear gas was being lobbed in and men outside were
trying to shoot him. He probably was too busy to read tweets. Moreover,
only one reporter was close enough to tweet anything remotely useful to
anyone. Most reporters initially or finally ignored the sheriff.

The tweet issue first arose during the 2008 Muslim
terrorist attack on Mumbai when invaded the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Some
authorities reportedly feared accomplices outside were reading news
media tweets and forwarding tactical information about police and army
movements to gunmen inside. I don’t remember if anyone asked reporters
to quit tweeting.

• A new poll says Fox hit an alltime low for the four
years Public Policy Polling has tracked trust/distrust among TV
networks: 41 percent trust Fox, 46 percent do not. The poll didn’t find anything for
other networks to brag about. Only PBS had more “trust” than “distrust”
among viewers: 52 percent trust, 29 percent don’t trust. The poll questioned 800
voters by telephone from Jan. 31 to Feb. 3.

• Garry Wills’ new book, Why Priests, sets out to debunk
Catholicism’s dearest dogmas and doctrines concerning priests, bishops
and the papacy. NPR’s Diane Rehm gave him an hour last week to say why
Catholic ordained clergy are an unnecessary accretion. Then she asked an
outgunned parish priest from the Washington, D.C. area for a rebuttal.
If she really wanted a lively, informed argument, there is no shortage
of priest-scholars who could have matched Wills’ credentials and talents
as an historian. It was unfair and cringe-worthy.

• It’s touchy when an unpleasantry is brought up in an
obit: a long forgiven conviction, a “love child,” whatever. More often,
predictably awkward moments are omitted in the spirit of de mortuis nil
nisi bonum. Here’s HuffingtonPost on a full-blown omission in the recent
obit on former New York mayor and mensch Ed Koch:

“The New York Times revised its Friday obituary
. . . after several observers noticed that it lacked any mention of his
controversial record on AIDS. The paper's obituary, written by longtime
staffer Robert D. MacFadden, weighed in at 5,500 words. Yet, in the
first version of the piece, AIDS was mentioned exactly once, in a
passing reference to ‘the scandals and the scourges of crack cocaine,
homelessness and AIDS.’ The Times also prepared a 22-minute video on
Koch's life that did not mention AIDS. This struck many as odd; after
all, Koch presided over the earliest years of AIDS, and spent many years
being targeted
by gay activists who thought he was not doing nearly enough to stop the
spread of the disease. Legendary writer and activist Larry Kramer called Koch ‘a murderer of his own people’ because the mayor was widely known as a closeted gay man.”

• New York’s Ed Koch admired Wall Street Journal reporter
Danny Pearl’s recorded last words before Muslim terrorists beheaded him.
Koch had Pearl’s affirmation of faith engraved on his own tombstone in
Manhattan’s Trinity Church graveyard: “My father is Jewish, my mother is
Jewish, I am Jewish.”

• A former student reporter rarely rates an obit in the
national media, but Annette Buchanan wasn’t ordinary. In the mid-1960s,
she refused a court order to name sources for her story about student
marijuana use on the University of Oregon campus. Her story ran in the
Oregon Daily Emerald, the campus paper. No shield law protected her
promise of confidentiality. The Emerald said she was fined the maximum
$300 and the state supreme court affirmed her contempt of court
conviction. That led to the creation of Oregon’s shield law for
journalists. She died recently.

• An unresolved First Amendment issue is whether bloggers
can be protected by state shield laws that allow journalists to keep
sources secret. The latest case is from New Jersey. Poynter.com
said blogger Tina Renna refused to identify government officials whom
she said misused county generators after Hurricane Sandy. Union County
prosecutors demanded the 16 names, saying Renna wasn’t a journalist
protected by New Jersey’s shield law because she’s been involved in
politics, her blog is biased and she’s often critical of county
government.

The Newark Star-Ledger took her side. It said shield law protection “shouldn’t
hinge on whether someone is a professional, nonpartisan or even
reliable journalist. It’s a functional test: Does Renna gather
information that’s in the public interest and publish it? Yes.” Renna “can
be a little wild, she’s not the same as a professional reporter and she
drives local officials crazy. But part of democracy is putting up with
Tina Renna.” A court will probe whether Renna is a journalist as defined
by the state shield law; that is, whether bloggers can be included by
analogy under protected electronic news media.

• Few ledes — introductory sentences in news stories — are
as lame as those saying the subject “doesn’t look” like some
stereotype. For years, it usually referred to a woman in an
unconventional (read men’s) occupation or pastime. “She didn’t look
like a steelworker . . . “ or, “You wouldn’t think a tiny blonde bagged a
deadly wild boar with a huge .44 magnum revolver.” Male subjects aren’t
immune, as in this lede from a recent Washington Post story: “Farmer
Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who stands in the
way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens Monsanto’s
pursuit of new products . . . ”

What do revolutionaries look like? Lenin was pictured in
suit and tie. Gandhi wore a white, draped sari or dhoti, Mandela and
fellow ANC rebels often wore suits and ties. Young 1960s American and
French student rebels never wore suits and ties and needed haircuts.
Today’s young North African activists dress the same for class or a
demonstration.

“Doesn’t look like” wouldn’t even fit an androgynous male
model in the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show. He’d be there
because he looks like a classic, young, leggy “angel.”

• Have you noticed how hurricanes, floods, blizzards and
tornadoes are morphing from evidence of climate change into photo ops?
News media see them as so common that little reporting is required
beyond images and stories of hardship: shoppers hoarding sliced white
bread, downed trees and shattered homes, marooned airline passengers and
days without power. Maybe there’s the throwaway quote from some
climatologist about change affecting weather, but for the most part,
that’s it. I’m betting this deliberate ignorance is a Republican Party
plot to show that increasingly frequent, dangerous weather reflects the
Intelligent Design that gave us dino-riding cavemen a few thousand years
ago.

• The Enquirer devoted Page 1 to a dramatic OMG! graphic
and story suggesting Cincinnati was terrible because it had no black
candidate for mayor. An accompanying list of movers and shakers had few
blacks. The presentation suggested the all-white mayoral contest meant
amiss in a city where whites are the largest minority. However, whites
and blacks told reporters that leadership rather than color was foremost
among attributes they sought in a mayor. Moreover, with so many African
Americans in visible leadership roles in the city, having a black mayor
succeed a black mayor was less of an issue than the paper suggested.

America is a country at war. While the war in Iraq
ostensibly drew down in December 2011, the United States has been
quagmired in a war in Afghanistan for more than a decade.

But we're also in the midst of a number of other wars — cultural wars. It started with Nixon’s War on Drugs, then quickly escalated.

President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations on coal
mining caused proponents to claim he had declared a War on Coal. The
Affordable Care Act’s mandate that companies pay for employee
contraception caused many faith groups to claim a War on Religion.

Statements from Republican politicians about “legitimate
rape” and “binders full of women” caused some Democrats to claim the GOP
had declared a War on Women.

And the ever-vigilant conspiracists news hounds at FOX
News have exposed a scheme by Jesus-hating liberals to wage a War on
Christmas for trying to remove constitutionally questionable dolled-up
trees and pastoral scenes of babies in unsuitable barn-life cribbery
faith-based displays from public property.

But by far the most heinous altercation being waged
originated with Republican Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus, who has
declared a War on Babies.

As first reported by The Enquirer, conservative groups
this week sent out a press release vilifying Niehaus for killing tons of babies in a
mass effort to wipe out the state’s youth population a 17-month old bill
that would give Ohio one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation.

Niehaus moved the so-called Heartbeat Bill — which would
ban all abortions after the first detectable fetal heartbeat — from the
Health Committee to the Rules and Reference Committee to avoid a forced
vote on the legislation. He also removed staunch anti-abortion Senators
Keith Faber and Shannon Jones from that committee.

“I’m shocked by Tom Niehaus’ war on pro-life women,” wroteLori
Viars in the news release. Viars is the vice president of Warren County
Right to Life and vice chair of Warren County Republican Party.

Viars called for Republicans to remove Niehaus from Senate
leadership. Niehaus is term-limited and will not continue on in office
after this year.

Niehaus blamed Romney’s loss for his decision to kill the
bill, saying that the Republican’s victory would have increased the
likelihood of a U.S. Supreme Court lineup that would uphold it against a
likely challenge.

Compares his policies to Clinton; Romney to Bush

Just two days before the general election, President Barack Obama
made his case to 13,500 people packed into the University of Cincinnati’s Fifth
Third Arena and 2,000 in an overflow room.

Obama cast the race in comparisons to the previous two
presidents, comparing his policies with those of Bill Clinton and equating Republican
challenger Mitt Romney’s plans with those of George W. Bush.

“So stay with me then,” Obama said. “We’ve got ideas that work,
and we’ve got ideas that don’t work, so the choice should be pretty clear.”

With less than 48 hours before polls open on Election Day,
a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll had Obama and his Republican challenger locked
in a statistical dead heat. However the same poll showed Obama with a slight
edge in Ohio, up 48 percent to Romney’s 44 percent.

Obama touted his first-term accomplishments, including ending the
war in Iraq; ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy preventing homosexuals
from serving openly in the military; and overhauling the country’s health care
system.

“It’s not just about policy, it’s about trust. Who do you trust?”
the president asked, flanked by a sea of supporters waving blue “Forward”
signs.

“Look, Ohio, you know me by now. You may not agree with every
decision I’ve made, Michelle doesn’t always agree with me. You may be
frustrated with the pace of change … but I say what I mean and I mean what I
say.”

Nonpartisan political fact-checker PolitiFact on Nov. 3 took a
look at Obama’s record on keeping his campaign promises from 2008. The group rated
38 percent as Kept, 16 percent Compromised and 17 percent Broken.

Twice during his speech the president was interrupted by audience
members shouting from the stands.

The first was a man on the balcony level of the arena
interrupted, shouting anti-abortion slogans and waving a sign showing mutilated
fetuses before being dragged out by about five law enforcement officers. Both were
drowned out by supporters.

Music legend Stevie Wonder opened the rally for Obama, playing a
number of his hits, opening up “Superstition” with a refrain of “on the right
track, can’t go back.”

Wonder discussed abortion policy between songs and urged Ohioans
who had not already voted to do so either early on Monday or Election Day.

So far, 28 percent of Ohio voters have already cast their
ballots. CNN reports that those votes favor Obama 63/35, according to public
polling.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Romney campaigned before an estimated crowd
of 25,000 in Pennsylvania, according to the Secret Service.

Political rallies always draw a number of the loyal opposition,
and this late-evening appearance was no different. Only five people protested
near the line to the arena, but what they lacked in number they attempted to
make up for in message.

One large sign read “Obama: 666” and another “Obama is the Beast,”
alluding to a character in the Christian Biblical book of Revelation.

A man who only identified himself as Brooks carried a large
anti-abortion sign that showed pieces of a dismembered fetus.

“I’m here to stand up for the innocent blood that has been shed
in this land to the tune of 56 million,” Brooks said. He said he was opposed to
the politics of both major party presidential candidates.

“I pray for Barack Obama because his beliefs are of the
Antichrist, just like Romney,” Brooks said.

Brooks said his message for those in line was for them to vote
for Jesus — not on the ballot, but through their actions and through candidates
that espoused Christian beliefs.

“Obama is not going to change things, Romney is not going to
change things,” Brooks said. “In the last days there are many Christs, but not
the Christ of the Bible. The Christ of the Bible is not for killing children,
is not for homosexual marriage.”

Only four days left to early-vote in person. Find out where to do that here.

U.S. employers hired 171,000 people in October and revised
job growth over the previous two months, finding it had been stronger
than previously thought. However, unemployment inched up to 7.9 percent
from 7.8 percent in September, due to more out-of-work people looking
for work. People are only considered unemployed if they’re actively
searching for work. More people entering the workforce and increased job
growth had the stock market jumping, with the Dow Jones Industrial
Average futures up 30 points within minutes of the opening bell.

COAST has been keeping busy this week. The anti-tax group
filed two lawsuits, one trying to block the sale of some land near the
former Blue Ash Airport to prevent the cash from being used for the
streetcar, and the other against Cincinnati Public Schools over
allegations that staff used school emails to promote voter registration
drives and offering to volunteer and contribute to the campaign
supporting the CPS school levy (issue 42).

The U.S. Senate race between incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown
and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has been expensive, no doubt. But what
has all that money gone to? An analysis by The Enquirer shows that the
nearly $30 million spent by both campaigns on the race has gone from
everything from pollsters to Cincinnati Reds tickets to a used Jeep
Cherokee. The largest expenditure for Brown’s campaign was $1.7 million
for staff salaries, while the largest of Mandel’s expenditures was $1.7
million on TV ads.

People thinking about entering law school next year,
rejoice. Despite a dire job market for new graduates, both campaigns
have mobilized armies of lawyers in preparations to sue for votes in
battleground states. If the next election is this close, you might have a
job in four years. Assuming the Mayans were wrong about the apocalypse
and everything.

A joint committee of Cincinnati City Council met Thursday
to discuss allegations that workers at the University Square development
in Clifton aren’t being paid enough. They didn’t take any action, other
than asking the city to investigate, but agreed that there needs to be
better oversight to make sure workers on taxpayer-funded projects are
paid what they’re supposed to earn.

If you are accused of a crime in Ohio and police take your
DNA, they get to keep it on file, even if you’re acquitted. The Ohio
Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that DNA samples are like fingerprints
and can be kept even if a suspect is acquitted of a crime.

A bunch of dirty hippies “light warriors” buried hundreds
of muffin-crystal-thingies in at Serpent Mound to help realign the
energy of the ancient Native American burial mound. They were caught
because they made a YouTube video of their alleged desecration.

President Barack Obama has canceled scheduled Wednesday
appearances in Cincinnati and Akron to coordinate recovery efforts in
the wake of super storm Sandy, the White House announced Tuesday.

Obama was scheduled to highlight his second-term agenda
from economic growth and the middle class, according to a news release.
The release promised a “concrete and specific plan for the next four
years.” Both Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney have been vague
on details of exactly what they would do if elected next Tuesday.

Vice President Joe Biden had also canceled Tuesday
appearances in Wooster and Gambier, Ohio, “due to local preparations and
response efforts” for the storm.

Meanwhile Romney campaigned Tuesday morning near Dayton,
where his campaign collected supplies and donation to be sent to
storm-affected areas of New Jersey.

Hurricane Sandy slammed the East Coast last night. At
least 16 people are believed to have died from the storm, and as many
as 7.5 million were left without power. Areas of New York and New Jersey
also faced major flooding. It took until 4:30 a.m. for Sandy to go from
hurricane to tropical storm.

The Anna Louise Inn will be in court at 9 a.m. today arguing in front of the First District Court of Appeals, which could overturn a May ruling and allow the Inn to move forward with its renovation. CityBeat will have online coverage for the hearing later today.

Hamilton County’s probation department is facing
sexual harassment charges. The charges are coming from a county worker
who said her promotion was denied due to her actions “for opposing
discrimination and encouraging others to exercise their right to be free
from acts of discrimination.”

The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes
filed a lawsuit Friday in an attempt to reverse the August reworking of
the Blue Ash airport deal. For COAST, the lawsuit is mostly to stall or
stop the financing for the $110 million Cincinnati streetcar.

City Council will vote next week to decide whether
the city should borrow $37 million to fund development projects and a
portion of the Homeless to Homes program. But Homeless to Homes is
generating some concern due to its requirement to move three shelters.

Mitt Romney is running a new ad against President Barack
Obama in Ohio that says Chrysler is moving Jeep production to China. The
ad, which Chrysler says is false, warranted a snarky response from the
car company: “Despite clear and accurate reporting, the take has given
birth to a number of stories making readers believe that Chrysler plans
to shift all Jeep production to China from North America, and therefore
idle assembly lines and U.S. workforce. It is a leap that would be
difficult even for professional circus acrobats.” The Obama team also
responded with its own ad. It is somewhat understandable Romney would be
getting a bit desperate at this point in the race. Ohio is widely
considered the most important swing state, but aggregate polling has
Romney down 1.9 points in the state. Romney is up 0.9 points nationally.

State Republicans are refusing to pull an ad that accuses
William O’Neill, Democratic candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court, of
expressing “sympathy for rapists.” This is despite the fact that Justice
Robert Cupp, O’Neill’s Republican opponent, has distanced himself from
the ad. At this point, even the most nonpartisan, objectives watchers
have to wonder why the Republican Party can’t keep rape out of its
messaging. In comments aired first on Aug. 19, U.S. Senate candidate
Todd Akin of Missouri said on pregnancy after rape, “If it's a
legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole
thing down.” On Oct. 23, Richard Mourdock, the Senate candidate for
Indiana, said, “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came
to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life
begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that
God intended to happen.”

Ohio is getting closer to the health exchange deadline
with no plan in sight. Obamacare asks states to take up health exchanges
that act as competitive markets for different health insurance plans.
States are allowed to either accept, let the federal government run the
exchanges or take a hybrid approach. As part of the health exchanges,
the federal government will also sponsor a heavily regulated nonprofit
plan that sounds fairly similar to the public option liberals originally
wanted in Obamacare.

Meanwhile, Ohio and other states still haven’t decided
whether they will be expanding their Medicaid programs. In the past,
state officials have cited costs as a big hurdle, but one study from
Arkansas found Medicaid expansions actually saved money by reducing the
amount of uncompensated care. Some states that expanded Medicaid also
found health improvements afterward.

An inspector at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) was
caught not doing her job. The inspector was supposed to do 128 site
visits for in-person safety inspections, but she apparently never showed
up to some of the schools and filed fraudulent reports.

Romney makes case for election at Jet Machine in Bond Hill

There are only a few more weeks of political commercials, ads, promises and accusations flooding the TV and radio before the Nov.
6 presidential election. While many Americans are tired of political
campaigning, Ohio — the most important swing state in the United States —
has been showing a great response toward the campaign as it nears its
end.

On Thursday, 4,000 people lined up outside of Jet Machine
in Bond Hill to hear Republican candidate Mitt Romney speak at 11 a.m.

After flying in to Lunken Airport on Wednesday night,
Romney had breakfast at First Watch in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday
morning before proceeding to the rally in Bond Hill.

His visit in Cincinnati was the first of a three-stop bus
tour in Ohio — along with Worthington and Defiance, Ohio later that
afternoon.

"The Obama campaign is slipping because he keeps talking
about smaller and smaller things when America has such big problems,"
Romney said.

Romney cheered on small businesses and promised that his businesses experience will help turn the economy around.

In a response to the Cincinnati rally, the Obama campaign
explained that Romney's visit was just another attempt to try and
convince Ohio workers that he is on their side and will stand up to
China, when in fact it's the opposite.

"As a corporate buyout specialist, Romney invested in
companies that pioneered the practice of shipping jobs to places like
China, shutting down American plants and firing workers — all while he
walked away with a profit," Jessica Kershaw, Obama for America — Ohio press secretary, explained.

"These jobs are likely to come at the expense of American
workers in cities like Cincinnati, and that’s why the people of Ohio
will not be supporting Mitt Romney this November.”

Romney ended the rally encouraging the Buckeye state to go to the polls and vote early.

"We need to make sure Ohio is able to send a message loud
and clear: We want real change. We want big change," Romney encouraged.

In an attempt to secure Ohio, President Obama is due in
Cincinnati on Halloween. With just two weeks remaining before election
day, a new Ohio poll from TIME.com says that Obama is winning 49 percent of Ohio, compared with Romney's 44 percent.